How to Find Great New Music on Spotify
Volume 90 - four minute read
June 15th, 2018
As a music lover and artist myself, I’m always looking for new music to keep me inspired and motivated whether I’m working, at the gym, or just relaxing. I switched over to Spotify from Apple Music a few months ago out of frustration for Apple Music’s UI and discovery and have since found some really great methods of finding music I like on Spotify.
Spotify does a great job of making most of their features in this space prominent and easy to come across for users, but a few I’ve found that have been very helpful for me that I wanted to share.
Featured Playlists
Under Browse in your sidebar you’ll find a tab named Genres and Moods which is by far the best place I’ve found for discovering new tracks and artists on Spotify. Spotify’s editors curate the playlists you’ll find on these pages and are able to browse by both the mood you’re looking for or the genre you’re interested in.
The playlists within here go from general to very niche styles and you’re able to endlessly find new genres that peak your interest. For example, I recently found a great playlist named Cute Beats. Weird sounding I know, but it ended up being a niche I found that I really liked. This has happened a few times for me and have found a few artists I really enjoy through these playlists so I recommend digging through these for playlists to follow now and then.
Albums from Songs Discovery
Tagging along off of Featured Playlists, finding new music through the tracks in these playlists is helpful as well. When I find a track from these playlists I really like, I’ll look into that artist’s other music that they have put out. Usually I find some more great music through other songs on that album or even on their entire profile. I’ve found some of my favorite tracks and artists through this method.
Discover Tab
Under Browse in your sidebar you’ll also find a handy tab appropriately named Discover. Here you will find a plethora of ways to find music similar to what you listen to and enjoy.
Discover Weekly is a hit or miss usually, but a great place to find new music weekly based on your listening patterns. Release Radar is a neat playlist that keeps tracks of the latest releases from artists that you follow on their Spotify profile. This is a nice way to find new music from your favorite artists without having to keep track of all of their releases.
You’ll also get Top Recommendations for You and New Releases for You which are a nice way to see the most relevant music based on your listening patterns. After that you’ll get recommendations based on specific artists you have listened to recently. This section isn’t as helpful in my experience but can lead to some gems here and there.
Recommended Songs
At the end of your playlists you’ll find a Recommended Songs section that acts sort of like a mini Discovery tab within your playlists. Spotify takes the tracks that you have in this playlist and will recommend songs that are similar to the tracks and mood on this playlist.
This overall has been a great place after I’ve gotten through one of my playlists and want some new similar additions. You can even press refresh in the top right to have Spotify bring in even more tracks for you to listen to!
Hope this will help you find some new great music to listen to and if you need something on the ambient side of things, be sure to check out my music that I make here and on all streaming platforms. Enjoy!
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Dennis Cortés
Product Designer at MetaLab. I also code, illustrate, write weekly articles, and produce music. Hispanic. Pokémon Master.
www.cortes.us
